Innovators take to the floor at CES 2019

Share

As the giants of the technology and consumer electronics industries prepare to amaze audiences at CES 2019 with their latest inventions, smaller companies are also hoping to make an impression. An opportunity for the latter presented itself on the floor of CES Unveiled Las Vegas on Sunday.

The event opened to a large crowd of onlookers and journalists who gathered for a closer peek at innovative technologies that could play a future role in the daily lives of humans. For some of the exhibitors, a stall at CES Unveiled is the perfect platform to garner attention.

“CES is a fantastic opportunity to earn credibility among some of the big key influencers in the world,” says Patrick Sherwin, the CEO and creator of GoSun. His product is a solar powered kitchen with a cooking and cooling platform. The aim of creating such a product is to draw people away from using, what he calls, “volatile energy sources”.

The product inventor, whose company is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, says CES also provides a chance to meet with potential distributors. He is hopeful of finding the right match to help his product grow further than it already is on the international stage.

As expected, AI products were also featured on the floor of CES Unveiled. One of the products was the Ecovacs Diva w960, which is a cleaning robot that can maneuver its way around the household more efficiently than similar machines. It uses a combination of artificial intelligence and visual interpretation to avoid small objects like socks or wires.

Another device from France, hopes to save the lives of elderly people whose caregivers may not be available at a given time. It uses sensors to detect any unusual activity or mishap, such as a fall or irregular sleeping patterns, to send a distress signal to a central system. The system then ensures that an ambulance is dispatched to the location of the suspected patient.

Also based in France, R-PUR’s stall was a highlight of the show floor when it displayed a revolutionary anti pollution mask. Its creator boased that there are other masks on the market which filter out micro particles. However, her device is the only one capable of keeping people safe from nanoparticles. She has come all the way from Europe for another year at CES after having bagged the Tech for Goods -award at the same event in 2018.

Not all products were for adults, however, as is exemplified by Coding Critters. The company's aim is to teach preschool students basic coding. It uses basic coding principles, problem solving and logic to achieve this end. “It is set up by a storybook and they have challenges that they have to complete using coding principles.”

Another device that garnered attention at CES 2019 was Legrand, a switch with embedded voice assistant. Aiming to make “voice assistant a standard in the connected home”, it was one of winners of this year’s awards at CES 2019.

Paired with Amazon’s Alexa, Legrand can close the lights and draw the curtains with a “goodnight” prompt. Users can also get information from the assistant, as is the case with several such devices. However, the difference with Legrand is that it is embedded directly into the wall and several accompanying devices will be strategically placed to enable voice assistance from anywhere in the home. This is the company’s fifth showing at CES having also travelled all the way from France.

“All the innovations are presented here and it is important for us to be at the centre. It’s a great place to look for partners and serves as a commercial rendezvous,” says a Legrand representative on the CES Unveiled floor. “We meet more prospective clients so it is important to be bright in the solutions that we bring.”